A resource for Scandi noir

Thanks to reader Avi, who told me about a good new blog about Scandinavian crime fiction translated into English. Recent posts include coverage of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, as the first volume is about to hit America, and the site includes a very helpful list of blogs dedicated to international noir. There's even a companion site with additional resources (including a breakdown of authors by country) hosted by Gustavus Adolphus College's Folke Bernadotte Library. It is located, of course, in Minnesota, the epicenter of all things Scandinavian in the U.S.

Bring the Supersizers to America!

The Dilettante's London spies have reported that they're quite keen on a new series called The Supersizers Go…, in which food critic Giles Coren and comedian Sue Perkins follow the diet of a specific British era for a week, then check in with a doctor.

Here's an excerpt from their Regency jaunt:



And something from the 1970s:



Now at a time when some claim to see a resemblance between Sarah Palin and Tina Fey, it's clear that the real Tina Fey lookalike is Sue Perkins. Perkins is pretty unknown on our side of the Atlantic, though she's built quite a rep in the UK, and she even made the tabloids when her ex Rhona Cameron outed her on a reality-TV show. This will only give more ammo to my colleague Adam Feldman, who has a theory that all the funny women now are gay. Except for Tina Fey, alas.

Here's Sue again, participating in the reality show Maestro, in which celebs have to conduct the BBC Concert Orchestra. The choice of music is particularly inspired.

France in the 1970s

France Culture, part of the French public-radio network, has been running great summer series. I mentioned the one about François Truffaut, but I've also been hooked to Les Années 70, which has been devoting two-hour shows of audio archives to each year of the 1970s. What's particularly inspired is that while the shows do mention big events, they also broadcast rather long, uninterrupted excerpts of less obvious but very 70s documents, like several minutes of Marguerite Duras explaining why it's okay to steal books (even if she herself doesn't have the guts to do it); Solzhenitsyn's appearance on the hit literary TV show Apostrophes; a report on Bertolucci filming Last Tango in Paris; the French Communist Party's head, Georges Marchais, interviewed about a strike; the mayor of a small town complaining about gay cruising; a news report a month after abortion was legalized; and so on.

And while I can't remember lyrics of the songs I hear now, even the ones I get obsessed with, lyrics from songs I heard when I was 10 or 12 are still crystal-clear in my memory, particularly Franco-Frenchy-French hits like Joe Dassin's hideous "L'été indien" (Joe was the son of director Jules Dassin), Johnny Halliday and Sylvie Vartan's "J'ai un problême" (I love the addition of vrooming sounds for the video) or Alain Souchon's "Bidon" (sensitive Alain was one of my mom's favorites and we listened to him a lot in the family Peugeot). Needless to say, none of these songs ever made it outside of France.

I was listening to the show about 1976 this morning, and they were playing excerpts from the very first Césars ceremony (France's answer to the Oscars). For Best Actress, the nominees were Isabelle Adjani in Truffaut's The Story of Adèle H, Delphine Seyrig in Duras' India Song, Catherine Deneuve in Rappeneau's Le Sauvage and Romy Schneider in Zulawski's L'Important c'est d'aimer. Schneider won and gave a speech magnificent in its economy and elegance. Here it is in its entirety: "Thank you very much. I'm very happy and very proud. And I'd like to tell you that tonight I'm especially thinking about one man who taught me my job, who was my master and my great friend. He'll be happy for me. It's Luchino Visconti."

A film that had a huge impact in 1976 France was Carlos Saura's Cria Cuervos. Partly it was because of the stupendous acting by young Ana Torrent, but also because the film's song, Jeanette's "Porque te Vas," was a hit. It remains a personal favorite to this day.

MP3 Jeanette "Porque te Vas"

The Saadiq factor

All right, not to toot my own magazine's horn here, but the Time Out–sponsored show at the South Street Seaport yesterday evening was a blast. The three acts were all completely different and yet to me it completely worked, even if I have to admit the crowds changed pretty drastically for each set, showing that my utopia of a single audience being able to enjoy Endless Boogie, Raphael Saadiq and Oneida is just that—a utopia. (I always find it funny when people tell me they have really diverse music tastes because their iPod has everything from Dylan to the Ting Tings. Give me a break.)

Of the three, my favorite was Saadiq, whose set put a goofy grin on my face. I wasn't really into his first band, Tony! Toni! Tone! but I absolutely loved his second one, Lucy Pearl—a trio with Dawn Robins (from En Vogue) and Ali Shaheed Muhammed (from A Tribe Called Quest)—and his solo output since Lucy Pearl's demise has been reliably sleek and inventive. On his upcoming album, The Way I See It, he looks back at old-school R&B (Smokey, Stevie) in typically smart and classy manner. Live he was the consumate showman, natty in a perfectly cut suit and working the crowd with ease and no cheese. And hearing the Lucy Pearl hit "Dance Tonight" live was a total treat (Saadiq did it with his female backup singer).

MP3 Lucy Pearl "Dance Tonight" (from Lucy Pearl, 2000)

There was an exodus of white hipsters during Saadiq's first song; I told a friend that maybe they would have stayed if that exact same music was played by a junkie instead. Never mind: their loss.

As I said, the crowd completely turned over from Saadiq to Oneida—basically all the black people left and the white ones came back/arrived. While I like Oneida, I'm not sure starting their gig with long, instrumental VU-type grooves was a great idea. It's the kind of stuff you build toward in a set; starting with it kinda defeats the purpose. Sequencing a live set is an art, and one that's quite different from sequencing an album (one of the reasons I don't enjoy the trend of bands playing an album in sequence live).

Cream of the Fringe

Not enough blogging because of too much life, including a vastly entertaining trip to the US Open earlier this week.

But life also involved checking out the Fringe Festival, with a review making it to the pages of Time Out New York this week. As I point out in it, Peter Barr Nickowitz’s The Alice Complex is the second play to be inspired by something that actually happened to Germaine Greer in 2000 (she was held hostage in her own house by a deranged female student). This summer, Joanna Murray-Smith’s take on the episode, The Female of the Species, played in the West End to mixed reviews, with Eileen Atkins in the role of the older woman.

From penning The Female Eunuch (retitled The Cerebral Vagina by Murray-Smith, The Alice Complex by Nickowitz) in 1970 to being a contestant on the 2005 edition of Celebrity Big Brother alongside the likes of Jackie Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen and the Happy Mondays' dancer/mascot Bez (she lasted five days), it's hard to find a better subject for a drama than Germaine Greer. Seriously: forget about the hostage business—her entire life could, should be a movie.

Weirdly enough, The Female of the Species was scheduled to open on Broadway early this year, starring Annette Bening in the Germaine Greer part, but Bening ended up withdrawing and the show never made it to New York. The Fringe play, though rather more modest than what you'd see on Broadway, did boast two excellent actors: Lisa Banes, displaying a sharp elegance that reminded me of Fiona Shaw at times (though like Shaw, Banes had a tendency to ACT) and Xanthe Elbrick, who had already impressed me in Coram Boy; why we don't see her more onstage in NYC is puzzling.

Pop for the masses

Being a pop geek, I was psyched to speak to some of my favorite songwriters for Time Out New York's special Fall Preview issue: Antonina Armato, Matthew Gerrard and Robbie Nevil. (Unfortunately Nevil's quotes didn't make it because of a space crunch.)

What, you haven't heard of Armato and Gerrard? Maybe not, but you sure have heard their work: To mention just recent stuff, Armato cowrote-coproduced the totally genius "See You Again" for Miley Cyrus and "Potential Breakup Song" for Aly & AJ. Gerrard cowrote "I Don't Dance" for High School Musical 2, and they have six tracks on HSM3. Get with the program, people!

Noir whiteout

Because it's been lovely and sunny here in New York for the past couple of weeks, I sought a bit of a cold draft by tearing through four novels from Scandinavia.

First up was Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, translated from the Swedish. I previewed it in the new issue of Time Out New York, so check that out for more info. Basically Larsson has fitted together financial muckracking + serial killers + a locked-room disapperance, three plots that may or may not be linked, making the book the lit equivalent of Russian doll. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first volume in a trilogy but unfortunately Knopf isn't putting out the next one until summer ’09. I may have to buy the French version, which has been out (and on the best-seller lists) for a couple of years now, as I'm not sure I can wait a whole year to find out what happens next. Yes, Larsson's that good.

Second was Per Petterson's marvelous To Siberia (which my colleague Drew Toal covered in the aforementioned issue of TONY). I hadn't read Pettersson's critically lauded Out Stealing Horses, so this literary novel (which actually predates Horses) was a discovery. Pettersson crams a lot in a small number of pages, and I guess my surprise at it says something about the bloat that's crept into fiction over the past few years, making short novels a rarity.

Third was Henning Mankell's Depths. This stand-alone novel (so no Kurt Wallander) takes place in 1914 and has got to be one of the bleakest things I've read in a while. In fact, it's like a parade of all the clichés people associate with northern Europe: relentless gloom, miserable characters, frozen landscapes, and depression, alcoholism and death at every corner. And yet I made it all the way through, slogging through the tale of Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, an officer reading depths for the Swedish Navy. Unsurprisingly, it turns out the methodical Tobiasson-Svartman is ill-prepared to measure, let alone deal with the depths lurking within himself (I bet you didn't see this one coming), and all's bad that ends badly.

Mankell provided a blurb for fellow Swede Kjell Eriksson's The Demon from Dakar, ie book no. 4 and a return to genre. Nothing special about this one, a by-the-number procedural. I have no idea why I even finished it, considering I had thought the exact same thing about Eriksson's The Cruel Stars of the Night. Recommanded only to hardcore Scandi-noir fanatics.

Applause, applause

I was watching the Denver convention after work today—at the gym, natch. I started with CNN but couldn't bear all those smug pundits, so I switched to PBS, which was showing the state-by-state roll call. Very interesting to a newly minted American like me, about to cast her first vote in a national election in November!

When I tuned in, Governor Jon Corzine was just casting the New Jersey's delegation votes for Obama. Next in the alphabetical order was New Mexico, which announced it was yielding its delegates to Illinois. "What a fascinating process," I thought, unaware states could even do that, and wondering what exactly the point of doing it was. But then Illinois yielded its delegates to New York. I was flummoxed but okay, if that's the way it works. Hillary got on the floor, surrounded by Chuck Schumer and David Paterson, and she announced a motion to stop the roll call and nominate Obama by acclamation. Which is what happened.

At first I thought it was so exciting and historic and all that. But after about ten seconds my mood turned. What is this, decisions by applause meter?

One of the biggest problems created by the Bush administration over the past eight years is an increasingly ingrained disregard for due process: Let's just dispense with all those petty rules and regulations, which only get in the way, and let's do what we want to do when we want to do it.

Which is why cheering Obama as the Democratic nominee was a bad, bad idea. There are ways to do things to ensure everybody's participation in the democratic process, even if these things are purely symbolic. Of course Obama's nomination was certain, but doing a roll call of the states at the convention, one by one, feels important to me: Democracy is a process, not just a word. The roll call allowed states like New Jersey, which had gone to Clinton during the primaries, to show solidarity by announcing their unanimous support for Obama (which is exactly what it did). Depriving the states, particularly the ones that sided with Clinton in the winter and spring, from openly, decisively, verbally embracing Obama sends the wrong message. The biggest ovation can't make up for it.

You can't stop the Alphabeat

The hand of Blogger fell on the following post, which was taken away from the blog! Here it is again, minus the offending MP3 (I figure that's what happened…), as I quite like Pete Hammond's remarks about songwriting and didn't want them to get lost.

The remix of "Boyfriend" by Danish group Alphabeat is a time machine: board it and you're beamed back to Top of the Pops, some time between 1988 and 1993, when Stock Aitken and Waterman ruled the airwaves with their ultra-synthetic productions. SAW released their stuff on their own label, PWL, which counted as a most potent weapon (re)mixer Pete Hammond—responsible for the new Alphabeat remix.

In the first first two minutes, before the vocals come in, he throws in every retro trick he can think of: syndrums, keyboard bass, hand claps, crisp guitar riff, synth hook. Then there's the song, sort of intact, then there's another break about two thirds of the way in. Oh my god this is so awesome, I just want to cry!!! I can already tell that "Boyfriend" will stand as a highlight of 2008 along with Die Soldaten.

Clearly the extended mix is the best, but the video, using a more compact version, is fun too:



Below is one of my favorite classic SAW nuggets, "That's What Love Can Do" by an American girl group called Boy Krazy.

My favorite aspect of the song is that it starts with the chorus but then the verse is actually catchier, and catchier still is the second part of the verse, which segues into the chorus. Absolutely masterful songwriting there. In regard to the importance of the bridge in a pop song, Hammond once said "A lot of people don't understand what a bridge is, but for me it's the most important part of a song next to the chorus. If you go straight from verse to chorus it throws your timing out because then either the verse has to be too long and becomes boring, or the chorus comes in too early. To me the ideally paced song is one which has a chorus-type intro for about eight bars, which at 120bpm lasts for about 16 seconds, then an eight-bar verse and an eight-bar bridge, which means you're up to about a minute for your first chorus. If the chorus happens any later than that the radio stations will take if off because they're fed up, but if you've got a good bridge leading up to something, they feel drawn to it."

Philosophical musings

My review of Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog is in the new Time Out New York.

That a novel in which an entire chapter is focused on dismissing phenomenology would be a best-seller in France isn't surprising: This is a country where every spring, the announcement of the philosophy questions at the baccalaureate exam makes the news. Samples from this year's crop:

- Can art transform our awareness of the real?
- analysis of an excerpt from Schopenhauer's The world as Will and Representation
- Is scientific knowledge of the living possible?
- Is it easier to know the other than yourself?
- Can one desire without suffering?

Talk amongst yourselves…

Damn the heavens

So the eagerly anticipated Rhys Chatham show with 200 electric guitars was cancelled at the last minute on Friday: The piece was outdoors, it was raining, and electricity doesn't mix well with water. People were mad and they weren't going to take it. Or were they? Over at SundayArts, you'll find my reaction on the reaction: In short, get over yourself.

La failure de Simone

Boredom made way to disgust today, as my friend Tristan and I endured La Passion de Simone, a 75-minute oratorio by composer Kaija Saariaho and librettist Amin Maalouf, and part of the Mostly Mozart festival.

Boredom because this "musical journey in 15 stations" was so short on musical ideas that I could not figure out on what basis Saariaho is hailed as an important contempory composer. To stay in the piece's spirit of portentous self-aggrandizement, I'll say it was us going through the stations of the cross.

Inappropriate? We're talking about a piece that, under the pretext of looking at the tragic struggle of Simone Weil—who starved herself to death when she was 34, in 1943, refusing to eat in empathy with those lacking food in the camps—tries to elevate to the sublime a tale that's much more down to earth: that of a selfish, childish woman endowed with a monstrous egotism. A stupider, more futile gesture is hard to find: She accomplished nothing, her death creating all the ripples of a tree falling where no one can hear it.

"She was trying so hard to solve some of the problems of our existence," Saariaho has said. Not at all: Weil was trying to solve her own problems, that's all. That inner struggle can be more than enough for an oratorio or an opera or a movie—characters wrestling with their faith was Bergman's crisp bread and butter. Perhaps Saariaho should have watched Winter Light to see how it's done. Art about someone wrestling with the idea of god is quite different from art glorifying useless martyrdom, especially when said martyrdom is couched in a pompous, vacant mysticism—here, the ultimate refuge-slash-excuse for an anorexic egomaniac.

Tristan nailed it when he said Weil was nihilistic and narcissistic. I can't remember now precisely if it was Weil herself (in one of the voiceover readings from her writings) or Maloof who drew a parallel between her factory-worker idea and the number tattooed on the arms of concentration-camp prisoner, but there's quite a difference between the two. But then, you're talking about a woman who mused that Alexander and Jesus were also close to 34 when they died. No wonder the Resistance didn't want her.

McCain endorses social democracy

For some reason it took me two weeks to see the lists of favorite songs Obama and McCain submitted to Blender magazine. It seriously makes me ill to see that Abba shows up not once but twice on McCain's list, with "Dancing Queen" at No. 1.

On the one hand, it may reinforce the prejudices of those who think of Abba as safe, old people's music. Dilettante readers know better, of course! On the other, you could argue that McCain has picked a band hailing from a social-democratic paradise and that it shows that…never mind, it doesn't show anything.

Obama has two non-American picks (U2 and the Rolling Stones) to McCain's one, and he has more female artists. No surprises there. Thank god Malia Obama is a fan of Miley Cyrus. I was starting to think nobody in that family ever has any fun.

Mary, quite contrary

I usually don't mind Mary Carillo. When it comes to American sports commentators, she's right at the top, and if you're going to listen to Olympics-related chatter, it might as well be from her. But I just happened to catch a rather embarrassing segment between events (ie, filler).

Bob Costas, he of the preternaturally smooth brow, had somehow heard that golly, they eat weird things in China, so he sent out Mary to try out some of the local specialties. "I can't believe they eat this stuff!"-type hilarity ensued. At one point, she mused something along the lines of "they'll fry anything around here," right before ordering scorpion on a stick.

If you've set foot in an American county fair, you'll know that they'll fry anything around the US as well, including Spam, avocado, Oreos and frog legs (are these really any better than scorpion?). And at least scorpions can be found in nature, unlike Spam.

This type of hoo-hah provincialism is really tiresome, but it's kinda par for the course when it comes to American coverage of sports, particularly sports taking place in other countries. The New York Times is doing better in Beijing, but it's really dry—it really lacks the kind of humor and gimlet eye covering such a preposterous event requires. (I mean, Phelpsmania is just ridiculous at this point.)

For my money, the best, most irreverent Olympics coverage can be found in the pages of The Guardian, particularly its daily missive "The Beijinger." Subscribe and it'll land in your mail box every day. Of course I also read the French press, so I can follow the travails of swimming star (or should it be ex-star at this point?) Laure Manaudou and the sports we tend to excel in, like judo, fencing, canoeing, whitewater kayaking, etc.

Calling all bunheads

I'm taking a break from devouring Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (seriously, I've been plowing through it—it's highly addictive) to point to my latest post on the SundayArts blog. This one's about the fascinating world of ballet schools. You don't need to be a bunhead—and I'm far from one—to think it's a mesmerizing universe of its own. And there's video clips, too!

In praise of French film noir

My short overview of Film Forum's series on French noir is now online (props to film editor Melissa Anderson for the most excellent title). Lots of nuggets are scheduled to hit Houston Street in the coming weeks, including one of my top five favorite films of all time, Quai des Orfèvres.

If you like François Truffaut

If you speak French (or want some serious practice) and like François Truffaut, French public radio has just completed a weeklong tribute to the director that adds up to a whopping 16 hours of programming. And for a while at least, you can listen to it all spread out on several podcasts. Just go to the France Culture site and scroll down to F to download the shows to iTunes. "Archives" consists of Truffaut himself talking about his work; "Documentaire" has a documentary approach with film excerpts, archival audio clips of people talking about Truffaut, etc.; "Débat" is made up of roundtables with some of the director's collaborators and film scholars discussing his career.

I've only listened to about four hours so far and I'm completely addicted, especially since the series is about a lot more than just one director—it covers the birth of both modern cinephilia and film criticism, French cinema in the postwar years, the relationship between French and American cinemas, etc.

A memorable moment among many, many others. On April 29, 1974, the Film Society of Lincoln Center is presenting a tribute to Hitchcock at Avery Fisher Hall; Ingrid Bergman introduces Truffaut, who delivers a short speech in his strongly accented English, familiar to viewers of Close Encounters of the Third Kind:

"Bonsoir mesdames et messieurs. I beg your pardon in advance because my English is terrible. You just saw the dubbing version—the dubbed version, not the French version. In America, you call this man 'Hitch'; In France, we call him 'Monsieur Hitchcock.' [audience laughs] You respect him because he shoots scenes of love as if they were scenes of murder; we respect him because he shoots scenes of murder like scenes of love [laughter, applause]. Anyway, it is the same man we are talking about, the same man and the same artist. When I began to direct films, I thought Monsieur Hitchcock was fantastique, maybe because he weighed more than 200 pounds. Therefore I tried to eat more and more. I gained 20 pounds but it obviously didn't work. I knew I had to find another way to understand the proportions of his genius. So I asked Monsieur Hitchcock to give me an interview of 50 hours and to reveal all his secrets. The result was a book. Actually it was like a cookbook, full of recipes for making films. But the great secret of Monsieur Hitchcock is a secret of cinema itself. People used to say, 'A film is good when it gives fear or pleasure to the audience watching it.' But I don't believe that. A film is really good when you can read between the images the director's fears when he made this film, or his pleasure making this film [chuckles]. I see it must be pleasure that Monsieur Hitchcock felt when he put his camera on the summit of Mount Rushmore."

The doc podcasts conclude with excerpts from Truffaut's aforementioned interviews with Hitchcock, which were recorded and saved. There was simultaneous translation by Helen Scott since Truffaut's English wasn't good and Hitchcock didn't speak French, so it's very easy to follow. And if you want to focus exclusively on the Truffaut/Hitchcock tapes, the blog If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger… has posted huge chunks of them. Craziness!

I am not unhappy

A colleague who had been reading the travelogue I was writing while on vacation remarked "Boy, you really seem to dislike America." It's actually not the case: I'm reasonably happy living in the US, and I even acquired dual French-American citizenship not so long ago. I also realize that it's precisely that utter fuckedupness of the US that's fostered so much great art over the years—no wonder the chaotic genius that is pigfuck was born in the Midwest, for instance.

What does drive me crazy, however, is how Americans always think they have it better than anyone else and other countries should emulate their model. I won't even get into pesky details like, you know, torture, Iraq, the lack of universal healthcare or the absolute inequality of the social structure here; but travelling abroad, particularly to Europe, you realize that America has really fallen behind in terms of quality of life.

Now this is a topic that hasn't surfaced in the campaign so far, but it touches on something really essential: Do we live comfortable lives with good public transportation, low pollution levels, a widespread adhesion to basic tenets of civility and the social contract? Are we happy? I don't believe the American-style rat race, in which people feel they have to always work more to keep up with the Joneses (ie, buy ever bigger houses, ever bigger cars—that is, before the advent of $5/gallon gas) actually fulfills said people. And one look at the crumbling New York City subway, in which water pours down onto the rails whenever it rains and the stations are filthy and decaying, should be enough to sober up the biggest booster. "Capital of the world?" Hah! Does Mayor Bloomberg really ride the train??

So yes, I do admire the Scandinavian Social-Democrat model. And there's no mystery as to how it's achieved (or at least one of the ways it's achieved): high taxes. Personally, I have no objection to paying more of them if they go to public transportation, better healthcare for everybody, better public infrastructure (ie, more rail and ferries, less roads).

Oh, and while we're on the subject of northern European countries: I've posted on matters pertaining to Scandinavia's approach to music on the SundayArts blog.

Trees died for this?

Lurking in the mail pile waiting for me at work were two tomes: The Amazing Book of Useless Information and Disgusting Things: A Miscellany. The former is a follow-up to The Book of Useless Information and is subtitled "More Things You Didn't Need to Know But Are About to Find Out," while the latter is basically a Garbage Pail Kids version. I realize there's a lot of more offending books, but for some reason those particularly irk me.

For all this I blame Ben Schott and his Miscellanies, which at least display decent wit. The copycats are just unbearable: "Antarctic means 'opposite the Arctic'," The Amazing Book tells us. "American and Russian spaceflights have always included chocolate." "The most popular gift in Eastern Europe is a bottle of vodka." Jeezus, these guys just google stuff randomly and call it a book! Disgusting Things, meanwhile, answers pressing questions such as "Why do dog farts smell so bad?" and "Do some women create artwork with their placentas?" What a colossal waste.

Dateline London, part 3

Farewell, London, it was nice getting to know you a little better. Indeed, it was only on this, my fifth or so visit, that I feel I finally got London. Before, I could never get the lay of the land and constantly got hopelessly lost, unable to figure out where the most basic landmarks were in relation to each other. I truly think it had something to do with the driving-on-the-left thing, as I experienced a similar disorientation on my trips to Australia. In any case for some reason things clicked this time, and I was able to actually enjoy walking around—especially since I also knew which bus to take, and which direction to take it in.

A couple of recent highlights: a really good lunch buffet in a vegetarian South Asian place (lots more fresh veggies and fruits than we'd find in the NY equivalent, where they seem to think everything has to be drenched in either sauce or syrup) and Hampstead Heath. Now that is a city park! I was struck by how bucolic it was, especially since unlike Central/Prospect Park, it wasn't overwhelmed by nonstop athletic activity and nutty picnics in which people feel they have to transplant their entire living room to the outdoors, complete with recliners and stereo systems. The most striking feature: the swimming ponds reserved for men and women. We only saw the women's one, of course, and it was like being beamed onto another planet; the sense of isolation was enhanced by the fact that our host and guide tried to use her GPS as a joke and the device was utterly befuddled as to what our location was. It felt like a slice of women's utopia lifted out of a 1970s feminist novel. I wonder if such a thing could exist in New York.

Before I leave for Heathrow, some observations about cultural differences on television.

In Stockholm, we watched a show called Singing Bee, on which contestants are tested on their knowledge of song lyrics. (I believe there was an American version but it didn't last.) The participants were all quite good, but what blew me away is that they essentially knew pop classics in two languages, Swedish and English. They had no idea what would be thrown their way but they never looked fazed. A guy was equally at ease performing Eurovision entries, Motown, and Swedish tunes I couldn't recognize. Oh, and "The Final Countdown." I'd like to see English or American contestants with this kind of bilingual facility. Actually, you could find them, but they'd be, like, Asian in England, Hispanic in the US. Perhaps a similarly bilingual show exists on, say, Univision in America, but I seriously doubt it could be on one of the major English-speaking networks.

In London, we caught the end of the British version of Deal or No Deal. First, we were surprised by how many family and friends the contestant, Betty, was allowed. But then it turned out they were the people holding the suitcases! So instead of a big razzamatazz set with identikit models holding cases out of a James Bond movie, you had totally normal people, in all shapes, ages and colors, around some kind of table. Second, the whole thing was tuned down several notches from the hysteria reigning on the US version, which somehow bolstered the suspense. It was kinda hushed and thoughtful, and the closeups on Betty's anguished face were almost…haunting.

Which brings me to third: Betty seemed to be in her late fifties/early sixties and looked every hard-lived second of it (HD is particularly merciless). Our Brit host remarked that the show looked like a Mike Leigh movie! I doubt Betty would be allowed on American television: The web of wrinkles and creases on her face harshly illustrated the very notion of aging and mortality, which is not allowed to be suggested in the youth-obsessed US. You could tell Betty had not had an easy life, which of course made the suspense even more biting. Very canny casting there!

Read elsewhere

My review of Jancee Dunn's debut novel, Don't You Forget About Me, is out in the LA Times. It's good readin', folks!

About Jacques Nolot

Oops, forgot to mention that my interview with director Jacques Nolot came out in Time Out New York last week.

I'm loathe to interview young artists these days because for the most part, they don't have much to say. Sorry, they just don't. Older ones, on the on other hand, do have stories, and it's hard to find somebody with better stories than Nolot, a wonderfully wry raconteur who's seen it all and is not afraid to say it all. Read on…

Dateline London, part 2

More sunny weather in London. Yesterday we walked around parts of the East End, with a coffee break at the new Rough Trade shop. I'd only been to the old one, near Portobello Road if I remember correctly, and the difference between the two is like that between a tenement and a boutique hotel. The new store is really spacious, with a little stage in the back for free performances (Neon Neon tonight, Daniel Johnston Saturday), a row of computers with free internet access, and of course the now-de rigueur café. I couldn't help but wonder how they sustain themselves, with that much real estate in a happening neighborhood--aren't record stores supposed to be dying?

Much less impressive: accompanying the Sheila to a business meeting this morning, we had to take the tube at rush hour. I'll never whine about the NY subway at rush hour after that miserable experience. We had to let three trains go by before we could even get on one. Then being tall-ish, I had to stoop slightly, crammed against one of the curving sides. And we were so packed that of course reading was out of the question.

We've been using an Oyster card to get around. It's a magnetic card that you just press against readers as you enter and leave the tube, or as you board a bus. Recharging them is a breeze. Still, the price is high and getting around adds up quickly. And despite this snazzy technology, Stockholm still had the best innovation: you can buy bus tickets on your cell phone, then you just show the cell's screen to the driver as you board. Again, America looks completely stuck in the 20th century there. But since Americans don't travel abroad all that much, they don't even realize how antiquated their infrastructure is. And don't get me started on the rail situation!

Dateline London, part 1

Alas, we had to leave Stockholm yesterday. Goodbye, Tidy Town of the North! We flew on to London, where we'll be for a few days, visiting friends. Much to my surprise, it took us only 90 minutes between the moment we left the SAS plane and our stepping into our new temporary abode near the Fulham Broadway tube station. The smoothness and cleanliness (well, it was filthy compared to Stockholm but spotless compared to New York) of the public transportation were stupendous--even though we keep hearing about how it's a weakness of London. I'm quite obsessed about public transportation, and it's one of my favorite things to explore when I travel. In the midst of the hullaballoo about rising gas prices in America, the lack of debate on public transportation never ceases to amaze me: that is what pundits should discuss, not alternative fuels like ethanol and used cooking oil. As usual, Americans are more interested in bandaids and lunatic pseudo solutions rather than structural innovations--especially since developing decent public transportation would require real change and real sacrifice (ie, higher taxes).

But I digress…

I hadn't been to London in about five years but the mere transformation of Fulham Broadway in that interval says volume about gentrification: For a second I even thought I had led us to the wrong station as it was completely unrecognizable. Just imagine, I don't know, a basic stop on the F in New York renovated from top to bottom, going from a regular station to a subway emporium-slash-minimall with a movie theater, a Starbucks, a Borders, etc. That is what happened to Fulham Broadway in the past five years. The rest of the neighborhood has gone through a similar metamorphosis: it's really poshed up, paralleling, I suppose, the evolution of Chelsea FC, whose stadium is nearby (our host is a transplanted Liverpudlian and so loathes Chelski, as it's nicknamed due to its being owned by a Russian billionaire).

More updates after we go on the town today.

Dateline Stockholm, part 5

We picked the right day for our excursion to the Archipelago, as yesterday was a bit brisk but sunny, and we soaked up the rays on our trip to Finnhamn on the classic steamboat Storskär. The scenery reminded us of the Adirondacks in upstate New York: lots of green, rocky little islands, many with a house or two built on them. And while we did see a few powerboats, there were far more sailboats and far, far less of the humongous, obnoxious SUVs of the seas that clog up American waterways. The steamer was full of people carrying backpacks as the islands are great for camping and hiking (if you don't mind mosquitoes and ticks). The Sheila dipped a foot in the Baltic and promptly took it out, but the water's temperature didn't seem to faze the Swedes splashing about.

Oh yes, we also continued our exploration of Swedish husmanskost (home cooking) with pytt i panna, a sort of hash served with a pickle and beet slices. (I've lost count of the cinnamon rolls we've ingested.)

This morning, I headed up to Skogskyrkogården cemetary, where Greta Garbo is buried. It was quite a trek, as the subway line was under repair and I had to take a shuttle bus. Then I tried to find my way around the place, which is so spartan that it doesn't include many directions. Still, this has to be one of the most magnificent cemeteries I've ever seen; no wonder it's a UNESCO World Heritage site. A fine example of Swedish functionalism, it's completely different from the rococo excess of, say, Père-Lachaise in Paris; rather, it feels as if the graves are just in the woods. I was alone the entire time, walking in a light drizzle. Garbo's grave is a little more elaborate than the others, but not that much: just a reddish headstone with her name, no dates.

Alas, I won't have time to make it to Norra begravningsplatsen, which has Ingrid Bergman, August Strindberg, directors Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller, and Vilhelm Moberg, author of The Emigrants (upon which Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus based their musical Kristina från Duvemala).

Dateline Stockholm, part 4

The Sheila and I were pleasantly surprised by how fun Mamma Mia! is, considering we didn't care for the play all that much. Meryl Streep looked as if she was having a total blast, which more than made up for the fact that the movie clearly takes place now, which makes the math behind a 20-year-old girl being born in the 70s rather wonky, to say the least. But hey, I stopped computing pretty darn fast. Plus, come on, we saw it in Stockholm!

Speaking of enduring magic, I'm quoted in this new Salon article about Abba's everlasting power. I wish I had remembered to mention, however, that for some music fans it's religious-era Bob Dylan, Ne-Yo's latest video and Arcade Fire fans that are cheesy. The cheese whiff clings to Abba mostly in the US and (a bit less so but still) England, countries with a very weird relation to European pop; that's because they're culturally protectionist when it comes to music and still find it difficult to accept the fact that a group from a non-English-speaking country could create great pop music that transcends its era.

Dateline Stockholm, part 3

I've been living in New York for 18 years now, and while I have visited the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, I'd never seen Patti Smith live until yesterday evening. She plays regularly in town, including popular New Year's Eve stints, but somehow I'd always managed to miss her. Well actually I did see her once a few years ago, but it was a poetry reading in Central Park, one of her first public appearances after her husband's death. I guess I lacked the motivation to catch an actual show because the whole poetic-priestess bit kinda bored me. But I loved her covers album from last year, Twelve, which really drove home the point that she's a fantastic rock singer.

The crowd at the Stockholm Jazz Festival, where Smith was performing, was much larger than the previous day, and the average age higher (I didn't see any babies in sound-blocking headphones this time). The show got off to a great start ("Dancing Barefoot," a 20-minute version of "Are You Experienced") but then fell into a kind of maudlin, slow-paced rut. Things picked up again, however, with a series of absolute punches in the gut: "Pissing in a River," "Because the Night," "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Rock and Roll Nigger"--she blazed through them all, the band (including classic PSG members Jay Dee Daugherty and Lenny Kaye) pumping mightily behind. And I'm sorry, but you just can't fake that kind of charisma.

On a sartorial note, Ms. Smith spent most of the set in a long coat, explaining at some point that she had a cold. She did take it off a couple of times, revealing not one of her trademark Ann Demeulemeester button-down shirts but a white T and mom-ish jeans (tucked into brown boots).

That was a fitting cap to a day spent exploring the neighborhood of Kungsholmen, then taking the tram around parts of Djurgården. The weather is a bit iffy today, which may provide appropriate atmospherics for a visit to the cemetary of Skogskyrkogården, where Greta Garbo is buried. More later.

Dateline Stockholm, part 2

Of course there is music! Our very first night, we were too bushed to go out so we watched Allsång på Skansen, broadcast live on television every Tuesday evening from the Skansen park in Stockholm. The show essentially consists of artists performing their own hits but also some pop and schlagerish classics and dansbands nuggets. The installment we saw had the Poodles (a glammy band that entered Melodifestivalen a couple of years ago) and some singers and comedians completely unknown to me. The concept is that the crowd sings along (= allsång) on the older tunes. The audience covers a fairly wide age range and it's really fun to watch hipster-looking twentysomethings enthusiastically sing their hearts out next to grannies and children. Allsång's popularity has grown so much that the Dilettante's Special Stockholm Correspondent told us that Robyn and Lena Philipsson have been on it.

Yesterday evening we went to the second night of the Stockholm Jazz Festival. Here, a shout-out to Liisa Tolonen and her crew in the press department, who must be among the most professional, the nicest I've seen in years of doing this job. The fest itself takes place on the grounds of the Museum of Modern Art on the island of Skeppsholmen (a 20-minute walk from where we're staying) and is remarkably run. I was struck by a few things: contrary to American practice, the prices at the concession stands didn't seem jacked up from what they'd be anywhere else in town; everything ran like clockwork despite a bad thunderstorm; the crowd covered a very wide age range, with kids as young as three wearing elaborate sound mufflers (kinda like the ones workers at airports wear); plenty of tidy portaloos. Also striking: people were clearly enjoying themselves but nobody was going wild, even during the Soundrack of Our Lives' awesome set. This last bit wasn't so good.

So, the music. Yesterday must have been Swedish Indie Rock Day because the two main acts on the main stage were Marit Bergman and the aforementioned TSOOL. I'm a big Bergman fan but I wasn't entirely convinced by her experiment: she did her entire set on the piano, backed by the Stockholm Strings quartet. I love her songs because of their bouncy pep and that was kinda lost in those arrangements. It may work better in a more intimate environment.

The most amazing thing is that the aforementioned thunderstorm erupted precisely as Bergman finished her last song, and stopped exactly as TSOOL took the stage. It was uncanny.

I'm not a big fan of TSOOL's albums but live, they smoked. (I realize I'm late to the party as great shows is exactly what's built them a good rep in the US these past few years.) Out of the three acts to emerge from the ashes of the legendary Union Carbide Productions, I'd always preferred the solo projects of guitarist Björn Olsson and drummer Henrik Rylander (so much so that I've interviewed them both for The Wire), but clearly I needed to see TSOOL live to get onboard. Even the Sheila, who displays a very Australian pickiness when it comes to rock & roll, was enthused. Favorite bit: Ian Persson, working a total Tony Iommi look that included super-tight 70s-style pants, 'tache and Gibson SG.

Dateline Stockholm, part 1

The worst thing about going on vacation is that you need to work twice as hard before leaving (hence the lack of posting) and twice as hard when you come back. But it's worth it 'cause I'm now in sunny Stockholm and on my first trip to the supermarket to stock up on lingonberry jam and fish balls, Abba was playing. So there.

After waking up late in the splendid abode of the Dilettante's Stockholm Correspondent, the Sheila and I spent our first day walking around and getting our bearings, refueling along the way with rather good lattes. I like getting them in tall glasses (same as in Kiev), which allows one to stare at the swirling milk. When we were driving in the Queensland countryside a few years ago, we passed a few "Tidy Towns" (a hotly contested award apparently), and yesterday the Sheila reflected that Stockholm was one big Tidy Town. Coming from New York, where trash flies freely around, it feels positively spic and span here.

After walking for a few hours, we finally bought a weeklong public-transportation pass and jumped on the first bus that came around--literally. We had no idea where we were going. We're big fans of buses (the regular ones, not the tourist ones) and they really are the best way to discover a city. Not to mention a great way to get cheaper food; the Sheila pointed out that we were going to feed on the "end of the line specials," which are a lot more affordable to us, crippled by our third-world currency, than the meals in the posh area where we're staying.

Today's program: The lovely Marit Bergman, a longtime Dilettante fave, is playing the Stockhom Jazz Festival (it must be Swedish Indie Rock Day as the Soundtrack of Our Lives is also on the schedule) so we're going to head up that way.

Raging fires

Predictably, Die Soldaten is dividing people. Obviously I stand on the pro side, and very much so, but others didn't care for the show. Anne Midgette's reaction in the Washington Post is interesting.

I won't comment on the specifically musical criticism, not being equipped to do so, so I'll focus on the content and staging. First, she's wrong right off the bat when she says "This is a work that is ready to rebel, even if it is not quite sure against what." Alois Bernd Zimmermann knows exactly what he's criticizing and rebelling against, and he often explicitly states it: the abuse of women by men.

"The exorbitant outlay for the movable seats proved a tremendously expensive gimmick: Pountney could not think of anything more creative to do than move the audience to a different part of the runway for each scene," Midgette writes. Actually, I found the device tremendously effective, and used very well (the seats don't move "for each scene," as she writes). It allows Pountney to play on both space and time, providing a sense of depth as we watch several actions happening either at once or at different moments down the 260-foot length of the runway. It also allows him to explore both a sense of crushing grandeur and intimacy; in that way, the moving seats function like a camera, zooming in and out of particular scenes.

Midgette also says that having Marie raped by men in Santa Claus suits is too obvious an image—but if this stuff was that obvious and easy to come up with, we'd see it (or something similar) more often on our stages. And we just don't. (I'm surprised she doesn't mention the stunning, utterly terrifing pig masks. Obvious, perhaps, but very, very effective—they really scared me.) Those images may look obvious because they are in such adequation with the music and themes, but they really are not that simple. A good director surprises you but also makes you think that what he does is inevitable—which for some may look obvious. Achieving both at the same time is very very difficult, but that's what Pountney did.

That rape scene, in fact, seems to be a problem for many. But it is as horrible as it needs to be. It is nauseating, but not in a way that made me despise the creative team. Unlike torture porn in contemporary horror movies, which makes me find the directors abhorrent, that scene made me despise what the characters did, not what the director did. My esteemed colleague Steve Smith pointed out that the scene doesn't exist in the original, or rather that it happens offstage. Well, it does exist then—Pountney just chose to make us see it. Yes, it is a deliberate decision to hit the audience over the head, to push our collective face into a pit of abjection, but I'd argue that as an audience, we need to go there, we need to descend into stomach-churning hell.

Finally, that Die Soldaten has provoked such arguments is the final proof, if needed, that it has fulfilled its purpose as a piece of art. If you want lukewarm, you can have it any day on any stage in New York. And me, I hate lukewarm.

Home is where Abba is

I've been a lot more excited about the movie version of Mamma Mia! than the stage one, mostly due to Meryl Streep's presence. But for some reason it belatedly occurred to me that I could see it on vacation in about ten days…in Stockholm!

The release of the movie has thrust Abba back in the spotlight, with the four members appearing together at the Swedish premiere. I'm very happy, however, to hear Benny and Björn state one more time that the band isn't going to reunite, no matter how much they get paid. What's a little less good is the avalanche of articles offering backhanded compliment to the band. One in The Independent, at least, looks more closely than usual to the craft behind the glitz. I particularly agree with the line "In Britain and America, bands had – and still have – a huge reverence for tradition and an obsession with authenticity. Scandi-pop doesn't have to pay homage to old bluesmen, or agonise about keeping it real. It can just grab whatever sounds best and feels right."

Of course there's also the usual blather about Abba's lyrics. The author remarks that they're not any more clunky that Chris de Burgh's "Lady in Red," but this is faint praise again—almost anything is swifter than "Lady in Red." It'd be more daring, and more honest, to say Abba's lyrics aren't any clunkier than those by Chris Martin, Duffy, Mariah Carey or, to mention just one major Abba pilferer, Madonna: "I don't like cities, but I like New York/Other places make me feel like a dork/Los Angeles is for people who sleep/Paris and London, baby you can keep." Oy. And unlike Abba, English is these people's native language.

Bitter truths

Charles P. Pierce's essay in Esquire about the Obama candidacy is one of the finest I've read so far. Of course, it helps that I share Pierce's take on Obama's discourse, and the fact that it's basically giving Americans a free-pass card (change without sacrifice, easy charisma over bitter pill). My main qualm is that Pierce's rhetorical gimmicks get a bit grating after a while, but it's easy enough to overlook them and focus on the ideas themselves.

What I like best about this piece is the rage and disappointment that run through it—not at Obama or other politicians, which would be too easy, but at the American people themselves. For despite all the talk about freedom and democracy, Americans do no exercise their most basic rights and do not fulfill their most basic duties as citizens, including voting and holding their elected representatives accountable. But hey, freedom is being able to drive your big-ass car wherever and whenever you want, right?

Pierce comes down harshly on Obama for feeding us bromides about the country's greatness: "The cynic will admit that it’s all great politics. Tell America that it is a great country that simply has lost its way for a spell. Tell the American people that they are a great people who are better than those hucksters who come to divide us. It has a marvelous anesthetic appeal. Swirl down through the clouds of memory and forget that the country allowed itself to follow George Bush over the cliff not merely because it was shocked by the attacks of September 11, 2001, but because it was too pissing-down-the-shoes scared to do anything else. Forget about how eagerly the American people cheered the brutish and the nasty, how simple it was to sell raw animal vengeance dressed up as geopolitical wisdom, and how dumbly everyone followed until well after it was revealed that the people selling it didn’t know enough about the world to throw to a cat. This was the era of complicity. Can Obama end it, thought the cynic, without admitting it ever existed?"

"Why would anyone have faith in America, which is not tough but fearful, not smart but stupid, and not shrewd but willing to fall for almost anything as long it comes wrapped in a flag? Why would anyone have faith in Americans? Barack Obama says that he has that faith because of his own life, because he was able to rise to the point where he can be thought of as president of the United States. He is the country’s walking absolution. That’s his reason, the cynic thinks, but it’s not mine. There has to be confession. There has to be penance. Being Barack Obama is not enough. Not damn close to enough."

Apocalypse now

Words like "genius" and "great"are thrown about regularly these days, but in the case of Die Soldaten at Lincoln Center Festival, they should be used literally. If you're reading these lines, you are likely to have an interest in the arts, so the message is simple: go.

Every time I'm brought down by one more mediocre, bland, utterly pointless show—they are even more lethal than the truly bad ones—I wonder why I'm putting myself through this rigmarole over and over again. Why, why do I feel the urge to stagger back home at 11pm on that slowpoke F train after one more disappointing evening out? It's because as with everything, your chances of hitting on something good are infinitesimal. Just ask anybody trying to date in New York. The odds are against you, so you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find the one prince—in the arts, something that transports you to another realm. You might call it transcendence, and when you find it, it makes up for all these wasted hours. That is what Die Soldaten provided on Thursday night, when I was lucky to see a dress rehearsal of that mammoth piece.

On paper, Alois Bernd Zimmermann's 1950s opera looks pretty austere, and it is, of course: 12-tone music isn't my idea of an elevator to bliss; add a storyline dealing with the use and abuse of a young woman by various men in wartime, and Die Soldaten had the making of a big spoon of castor oil. Honestly, I think it'd still be that for me without this new extraordinary staging (I can't say I will ever listen to the music at home for instance).

Lincoln Center Festival threw its financial might behind importing David Pountney's awe-inspiring production from the 2006 Ruhr Triennale, in which the audience sits on metal bleachers that slowly move along a gigantically long stage—in our case, set up in the main hall of the Park Avenue Armory—while the no-less gigantic 110-person orchestra sits on the side. (This helpful video preview explains the basic idea.)

As we made our way along the stem of the T-shaped stage, an optical illusion made it seem as if it was the actors who were on a treadmill while we were static. Pountney would place his cast along the whole length, making for an incredible impression of depth of space and even time. But the large scale was only part of the picture: The particular genius of Pountney's concept is that you get both a sense of mind-numbing grandeur and, because the action moves in and out of focus, so to speak, one of crushing intimacy—we were lucky enough to sit right next to the stage and so we were just about eight feet away from the cast at some of the most harrowing moments.

Die Soldaten is an ultra-rare case of a highly conceptual staging that brings everything out of the work and more, transforming the way we even consider the interconnection between art and life. It threw my head into a major Exorcist 360 spin. I'm pretty sure that I forgot to breathe during the last ten minutes, when the gruesome plot reaches its apex and at least four drummers in the orchestra are going at it in unison (the din was so ferocious that I could see the other musicians covering up their ears with their hands). A local director I know was sitting a few rows ahead of us and looked shellshocked afterwards.

Total hardcore!

It's hot in herre

Another post on the SundayArts blog, this time about the singular Nellie McKay, whose debut fronting a swing band takes place on July 8.

Life and death on the Prairie

Reading James Howard Kunstler's typically apocalyptic latest post, I was reminded of Jericho, the cheeseball, short-lived TV series I've been watching on DVD.

Kunstler, a Peak Oil theorist, argues that the looming economic crisis will be "something at least twice as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s: people with no money in a land with no resources (with manpower that has no discipline), hardly any family farms left, cities that are basket-cases of bottomless need, comatose small towns stripped of their assets and social capital, an aviation industry on the verge of death, and a railroad system that is the laughingstock of the world. Not to mention the mind-boggling liabilities of suburbia and the motoring infrastructure that services it."

The premise of the show is that nuclear explosions have destroyed several American major cities, leading to utter chaos in the entire country; the action is centered on Jericho, a small Kansas town cut off from the rest of the U.S. as communications break down, and power, gas and food run out. The response to the crisis is pretty much exactly as Kunstler described it above—though as I finish watching the first season, I'm entirely unclear as to whether the writers intended to critique the American way of life by showing the citizens of Jericho to be foolish, spoiled, childish, irresponsible and selfish, or if they had no idea they were painting such a damning portrait. A satirical viewpoint does peek at times, as when a teen boy (already established as a bit of a douche) happily explains that once the Internet is back on, everything will be all right again, food will be delivered, etc. But are the town's power couple, the former mayor and his wife (Gerald McRaney and Pamela Reed), really meant to be insufferably self-righteous characters prompt to cast judgment (the stereotypical judgmental heartland) or are they meant to represent good, old-school American values? I truly cannot tell.

It's the way Jericho's citizens adapt—or not—to their new circumstances that most resembles Kunstler's description of "comatose small towns stripped of their assets and social capital." First of all, this is Kansas and these people are starving in the middle of winter because no food is delivered and subsistence agriculture doesn't exist; the sole exception, it seems, is a single corn-growing farm (which, characteristically, is audited by the IRS for debt at the beginning of the show). Second, for several days, even weeks, after the first explosion, a lot of townspeople just hang out at the local bar, waiting for help to magically appear. Similarly, they seem content living in ignorance of what happened, and nobody has any interest in exploring the surrounding area—even though we are shown a landing strip and some small planes. Nobody attempts to find alternative sources of energy until months have passed. The passivity is simply extraordinary.

Now I realize we're talking about a series starring Skeet Ulrich here, but Jericho is one of those products whose anthropological/political interest is larger than its production values (as in the ol' Star Trek days, the show was visibly shot in a handful of Southern California locations and absolutely nothing about it looks either Kansan or post-nuclear). Even when it feels as if the creators' intents and what's on screen diverge, a lesson is taught: If there was a major catastrophe in America, the country would be woefully unprepared. And the idea of a Blackwater-like paramilitary company running amok in a devastated country is chillingly realistic.

Comedy is hard

It ain't easy to make people laugh, as Mike Myers just figured out. And it ain't easy being taken seriously even when you actually succeed in making people laugh. Follow that thought to my latest post on the SundayArts blog.

More fun: Spain winning the Euro yesterday. It wasn't the greatest match, but it was also far from the worst. Spain scored fairly early but instead of retreating and trying to preserve its edge, it kept on attacking. Meanwhile, Germany looked completely listless. A well deserved win for the Reds, and a fitting ending to a topnotch tournament.

Not fun at all: The performance of Macbeth I was scheduled to attend yesterday evening across from St. Ann's Warehouse was rained out. And since it was the last one of the run, I've missed the show altogether.

I won't make a habit of this

I overflow with enthusiasm in the new Time Out New York.

First, I hail the new DVD of Anthony Mann's The Furies, a wonderfully nutty 1950 Western starring Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston.

Then I go gaga over Joey Arias and Basil Twist's new show, Arias with a Twist. Even if the mere thought of puppets sends shivers down your spine—and not good ones—the show resuscitates the gonzo thrills of the downtown of yesteryear. And it's not like there's that many great offerings this summer anyway.

Finally, if you are in New York, free tonight and have a soft spot for pop music, please drop by Solas Bar at 7:30pm for the latest in St Mark's Bookstore's reading series. I will read from my book on Abba Gold, while LD Beghtol will read from his 69 Love Songs and Franklin Bruno from his Armed Forces. I may venture that we all share an appreciation for "Dancing Queen." Solas is at 232 E 9th St between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, in the East Village.

Why should the Times bother with European theater?

There's an expression in French that literally translates as "to call a cat a cat," meaning to not be afraid to call things by their name. I thought of it reading the end of Charles Isherwood's review of Macbeth in today's Times:

"It will surely thrill audiences who get a charge from flashy innovation for its own sake. Others will probably view it as the quintessence of — well, I was hoping to get through this review without using the glib derogatory term for Continental experimentation. You probably know the epithet in question. Begins with a capital E and rhymes with succotash."

You know, if that's what you think of Grzegorz Jarzyna's production, you should have the guts to use the full wording: Eurotrash. The coy phrasing only brings even more attention to the wishy-washy use of a condescending cliché.

I don't dispute Isherwood's critical take on the production, which I haven't seen yet. It's just hard not to get frustrated once again by the desultory tone that creeps in every time a non-naturalistic European import lands in New York. It would help if the Times' two main theater critics didn't come across as so uninterested in what's going on across the Atlantic—and I don't mean in the UK. Why trot out Jerzy Grotowski's 40-year-old "poor theater" when Jarzyna should be talked about in conjunction with his contemporary, Krzysztof Warlikowski? (TONY's own Helen Shaw did just that in her preview of Macbeth.)

I know I sound like a broken record, but at this point I'm actually beyond anger and into disillusion; it just saddens me to see critics with such a huge influence being so disproportionately disinterested in the art form they're supposed to cover. Just like last year, for instance, the newspaper's chief critic, Ben Brantley, is off to a month in London. (I'm sure local producers will read his dispatches with baited breath to see what they can safely import.)

But the Avignon festival is at roughtly the same time, and personally I'd kill to go. To mention just some of the names familiar to New York audiences, in the coming month you could see Romeo Castellucci's trilogy based on Dante's Divine Comedy, Thomas Ostermeier's Hamlet, Ivo van Hove's "Roman Tragedies" (Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra), Jan Fabre's Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day (a solo for dancer Ivana Jovic, with the title taken from a line in Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe"!), Heiner Goebbels' Stifters Dinge, the Brothers Quay's film installation Night Nursery, plus new pieces by Philippe Quesne and Superamas, who've both been to NY as part of Under the Radar. And then there's the ones familiar mostly to French audiences, like directors Stanislas Nordey and Arthur Nauzyciel, actress Valérie Dreville, choreographer Mathilde Monnier… What an incredible feast! In my spare time, I'd go to panels such as "The spectator's place: What's his responsibility" or "Which return to spirituality?" (Talk amongst yourself…) Ah well, maybe next year.

Karl Lagerfeld saves lives

In France, a new law, effective in October, makes it mandatory for drivers to carry a glow-in-the-dark vest and a reflective safety triangle in their cars at all time. If you break down and have to get out of the car, you're meant to put on the vest and position the triangle 30 meters from the vehicle. The fine if you don't is 135 euros (just over $200).

The best part is that the new campaign hangs around fashion maven Karl Lagerfeld sporting a spiffy vest, and still managing to look like a butler. The slogan: "It's yellow, it's ugly, it doesn't go with anything, but it can save your life."

Lagerfeld, who's also in the new Grand Theft Auto, doesn't have a license and is ferried around by a driver.

North is hot

Some musings about the coolness of Nordicness over at SundayArts: Between Finnish art at P.S.1, Icelandic art at Scandinavia House and Olafur Eliasson's waterfalls about to open for business, the flavor of the summer is decidedly Scandi here in New York.

Many shades of crankiness

At least the misery was brief: France lost to Italy yesterday, and packed its bag to return home, tail between the legs. What a crap Euro we had. In hindsight, not pushing more against Romania was a huge mistake, but one the French squad makes over and over again: underestimating a seemindly modest opponent. Fine, we're out and we deserve it, no question. Now let's fire inane coach Raymond Domenech and hire a guy who can stand up to the overpaid prima donnas who make up half the French team.

And speaking of failure, I talk about the deliciousness of Broadway flops in a new post over on the SundayArts blog. It's pegged to a new book by Bye Bye Birdie and Annie composer Charles Strouse, Put on a Happy Face. One anecdote Strouse related and that I couldn't fit in the other post is his first meeting with Arthur Laurents, the book writer for Gypsy and West Side Story. Now Laurents has been showered with a lot of love lately for directing the current Gypsy revival, but before that, and for several decades, he was known as a legendary crank. Strouse writes that he showed up at Laurents' house in Greenwich Village and was greeted with mirth. Laurents was "barely able to suppress his laughter, as though he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world. 'What's so funny?' I asked. Once he was able to stop chuckling, he said, 'Tony Perkins has AIDS.' (…) I never imagined he was capable of actual cruelty, and I thought little of it at the time."

Strouse, of course, would go on to realize he should have taken that little episode more seriously: "I imagined killing him and being brought to trial," he later writes as their collaboration on the ill-fated musical Nick & Nora unravels. "I could picture the judge peering down at me. 'Are you the one who killed Arthur Laurents?' he'd ask. 'Yes, sir,' I would say, 'I couldn't control myself.' And the judge would smile and say, 'I want the mayor to meet you and shake your hand.'"

The second coming of Teenage Jesus

My review of No Wave, the new history by Byron Coley and Thurston Moore, is out. Moore is playing bass in the reunited Teenage Jesus and the Jerks tonight at the Knitting Factory, though of course the main attraction is Lydia Lunch, flying in from her current home of Barcelona for the gig.

If you have any interest whatsoever in radical hostility, there's no excuse for missing that show. I'm going to the 9pm set myself; see you there. (Of course as with all shows at the Knit, a trip to the Pakistani Tea House is mandatory beforehand. Forget about the actual main dishes, good as they are: That place has my favorite rice pudding in New York—and sad to say, I've tried a lot.)

Patti LuPone slips into something comfortable

I went back to Gypsy yesterday, in the most excellent company of my friend Tristan. Before the curtain came up, the usual announcement about turning off cellphones and unwrapping candy segued into something more ominous: "Ms. Patti LuPone has injured her foot—" (cries of disappointment in the audience) "—so she will do this evening's performance in Isotoners. Her voice, however, is unaffected." (Cries of relief.)

Once I got used to seeing LuPone traipse around in gray slippers, the evening proceeded just fine. But the slippers actually made "Rose's Turn" even better than usual: Wearing a ratty painter's smock, then taking it off as she launched into her final aria, Rose in Isotoners looked like a bag lady in the throes of early dementia. Plus by that point LuPone had whipped herself up in a frenzy, sweaty and disheveled. It was a glorious sight, the kind of reason we go to live theater.

Seeing the show for the third time also confirmed my total stage crush on Laura Benanti, both as the mousey Louise and as the sultry Gypsy Rose Lee. Benanti is a smooth, slinky marvel in her strip montage toward the end; when she winks at the audience, it is both her and Gypsy who are in complete command.

Germany tests would-be citizens

This September, Germany is introducing a test for would-be citizens. This is part of the naturalization process in the US, and I myself prepped by memorizing the questions and answers (pulled from a list you can download from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services) and being quizzed by the Sheila; a new set of questions is going to be introduced in October ’08.

But back to Germany: the test is being implemented for the first time in the fall; applicants will be asked 33 questions and must answer 17 of them correctly to pass. Samples: What's the job of the opposition in the German parliament? When was the Federal Republic of Germany founded? Earlier on, however, the German state of Hesse had come up with its own set of questions, some of which would be unimaginable in the US (and were in Germany too, as it turned out, since they didn't make the final cut). For instance:

- A woman should not be allowed to move freely in public or travel unless escorted by a close male relative. What is your standpoint on this?

- Parents do not always agree with the way their children behave. Which educational methods are permitted and which are not?

- What possibilities do parents have to influence their sons' or daughters' choice of partner? Which practices are forbidden?

- Name two economic or business lobbies.

- The law forbids individual retribution. The victim of a crime may not take revenge on the aggressor. Who decides in matters of punishment?

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller are considered Germany's most famous poetic artists. Name one work by each.

- One of the most famous works by the German painter Caspar David Friedrich shows a landscape on the Baltic island of Rügen. What is the painting's central motif?

- Every five years, the city of Kassel is home to one of the most important exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. What is the name of this exhibition?

- Which German physicist made a discovery in 1895 that has revolutionised medical diagnosis ever since?

These questions would also not pass muster in the US, because they of course are extremely leading in terms of social, political and, last but not least, religious background, but also assume a level of cultural knowledge that would be thought elitist here.

Why Britain should support Sweden

This title is referring to Euro 2008, of course. (Yes, that is all I can think about at the moment.) Thanks to Sasha Frere-Jones's blog for directing me to this Guardian article, in which Robyn explains why English fans should support Sweden in the tornament, since England itself didn't make it. I pretty much agree with everything she says and in fact Sweden is my no. 2 sentimental pick, after France of course.

Actually there is one little thing…she writes "I've never known a country to like Abba as much as Britain. You like them more than we do!" Actually, the country that adores Abba the most has got to be Australia. The band was huge there before it really conquered Sweden, and Oz's passion for Abba has still not abetted.

In any case, Sweden is off to a roaring start, defeating the returning Greek champs today.

At least Italy is down

In Euro 2008 news, France got mired in a craptacular match against Romania yesterday; it was so awful that even the score of 0-0 doesn't reflect the utter pointlessness of those 90 minutes. (And yet I had a better time than watching a good baseball game. That's how it goes.) Our midfield lacked creativity and couldn't create any opportunities. And even when it did, Anelka and Benzema at the front didn't show any flair. Benzema's best occasion was a limp shot straight into the Romania keeper's arms. He's going to have to do a lot better than that.

But the day was redeemed by the utter humiliation of the Italians by the Dutch. I can't stand the Azzuri's playing style and rejoice every time they lose, but this was even better than a mere defeat: they were told a lesson. See the magnificent Dutch goals for yourself. Of course this doesn't bode well for France's own match against the Dutch on Friday; I'm not entirely sure the French defense is up to it (the Romanian attackers didn't pose that big a threat). I feel a first-round exit for les Bleus.

My first baseball game

Yesterday afternoon, I attended my first live baseball game; I guess you could say it was a big step in the Americanization of this freshly naturalized Frenchie. A friend got tickets for the Yankees vs the Kansas City Royals, so we all travelled up to the Bronx in scorching heat. According to the excited people in my party, it was a great game with plenty of action, real suspense and lots of hits (the NYT described it as a "slugfest").

I have to say, I'm still not convinced. And if I'm not convinced after a good game, then baseball's just not for me. But that's okay, to each their own—I'd still rather watch the lamest soccer game over the most exciting baseball slugfest, and with Euro 2008 starting, there's no doubt as to what's going to hold my attention.

What I'd like to comment on, however, is the ambience at the game itself. First of all, Yankee Stadium is an eyesore. You get out of the subway and it's like you've been teleported to some developing nation (though the prices certainly are first rate: it's Gouge City out there) and the directions are vague. Your visual sense is assaulted nonstop. There may be a new stadium next year, but its design is really conservative, especially compared to new stadiums (mostly for soccer) like the Olympique Marseille new Stade Vélodrome, the Lazio's new Stade delle Aquile in Rome, Valencia FC's new home in Spain, the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, or the Spartak Moscow's new home.

But what really struck me is that apathy of the fans; that seems to be an American thing because I got the same feeling at the soccer games I've seen in the US. The crowd was pretty quiet, and started yelling mostly when told to, like when the screens went MAKE SOME NOISE! Granted, people got out of their seats and screamed and clapped on good runs, but even that felt restrained. No songs, no taunting of the Royals, no spirit. The only chants were along the lines of "Joh-nny Da-mon!" which is just plain sad. I mean, is that the best you can do, Yankee fans??? Compared to the action in the stands of a soccer game, it was a bit of a letdown. My hometown club of Bastia, in Corsica, was dreaded all through the ’70s and ’80s for its rabid fans, and even though its humble Stade Armand-Césari holds only about 10,000 people (and even less when I used to go), they make more of ruckus than 55,000 Yankee fans.

Want to see how it's done? Check out the action even before a soccer game starts, as Liverpool fans sing their anthem in a match against Chelsea. Or see how fans of Lens sing "La Lensoise" and manage to do a conga line in the stands. The Sheila pointed out that America doesn't know how to do political protest and get in the streets anymore, so it's no surprise it sucks at cheering at games as well.

You may say: Yeah, but in the US we don't have violent hooligans! Of course there's got to be a middle ground between complete apathy and complete mayhem. But here people are so afraid of lawsuits that nothing happens at all. Or at least that's one of the reasons, I think.

Also: What's up with the nonstop eating and drinking? I have to admit that I ate a ginormous amount of peanuts and popcorn but I honestly don't believe I would have consumed as much if I had been more into the game. But I've seen people at soccer games leave to go to the concession stands during play, which is completely insane since a goal can come at any moment in soccer, and for all you know it's going to be the only one of the match. Do you really want to be at the trough when that happens?

Michael Clark is back in New York

What a simple statement: Michael Clark is back in New York. It's been about ten years since we've had the pleasure of seeing the Scottish choreographer here, and based on tonight's show at the Rose Theater, it's a real shame. (For some background on Clark, check out Gia Kourlas's preview in Time Out New York.)

The first piece of the evening, OO, was set to songs by Iggy Pop (the ploddingly grandiose "Mass Production"—I'd forgotten how great it is), Wire, Barbra Streisand and the Sex Pistols; the second, O, was set to Stravinsky's Apollo (the evening and tomorrow's program are collectively billed as "The Stravinsky Project"). I haven't seen Balanchine's iconic take of the latter work so I was free of baggage there (okay, ignorant!) and so I was completely hypnotized by the minimalist purity—having seen some Clark pieces way back in the 1980s, I guess I was expecting a rock & roll take, which is more ovious in OO. This, after all, is a guy so fearless that he's worked with the Fall.

The New York Times' reviewer, Claudia La Rocco, seemed put off what she referred to (repeatedly, and not in a good way) as the "wall of sound" in OO. The volume wasn't that high tonight, so either it's been lowered since the Wednesday performance she attended, or she doesn't appreciate the singular importance of volume in rock. Clark does, which is why it is an integral part of the piece, and is intricately linked to the elegant vibrancy of the choreography. In particular, I was stunned by how well he understood the clean precision of Wire's music, which he echoed in the movement he devised (and the costumes he co-designed, for that matter). On the other hand, I also heard that tonight's performance was more energetic than the one from Wednesday, so something to keep in mind.

One last thing: I love Clark's humor too, so, so punk. The last segment was introduced by an excerpt from Julian Temple's The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle, in which a hilariously posh voice coach praises Malcolm McLaren's singing ability; this segued into the Sex Pistols' "Submission," in which Clark himself wandered among his dancers, dressed in a black suit. To me he was the McLaren figure, both part and apart of the action. This isn't surprising from an acolyte of Leigh Bowery; just check out Clark and Bowery primping for a night out.

If you're in NYC and free Saturday night—and even if you're not free, for that matter, just make the time—head up to the Rose to see Clark's troupe in action; the evening includes Mmm…, set to The Rite of Spring, and I Do, to Les Noces. So no loudness there, but I'd wager plenty of intensity matched with sheer visual beauty. Lord knows we can always use some of that. With luck, we won't have to wait another ten years to see him again here.

In the meantime, enjoy Iggy Pop's "Mass Production" (from his 1977 album The Idiot). And make sure you play it loud.

Jeanette Winterson likes French disco-house

Jeez I'm a lazy bum. A week without posts. And it's not like there's nothing going on but, er, I got this new HD television set, you see, and I wasted way too much time not watching it, no, but trying to figure out how to hook up the DVD player and cleaning up the sudden abundance of extra channels—all over the air since we don't have cable (this HD business is going to be bad news for cable companies, weeding out at least the customers who subscribe mostly for the improved reception). Pathetic, I know.

I did manage to go back to Passing Strange, and was struck again by how smart, how moving that show is, and how good Stew's songs are. If you insist on spending some of your dollars on Broadway, go see it. Well, that and Gypsy for old-school pizzazz.

Elsewhere, Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, AM Homes and Jackie Kay illustrate the Musketeers' motto (at least according to Dumas) of "one for all, all for one"by collaborating on a 52, a novel in installments for the Guardian. This is scheduled to go on for a year, as the title suggests, with the four authors taking turns writing chapters—but not revealing who wrote what. A paragraph like "Merrie England in the month of May: Cuckoo, cowslips, the sun early and shallow-rimmed as it rises, the deep dew at dawn, as though the planet were still damp from its making." reads very Wintersonesque to me. Or like one of the other three poking fun at the style of Winterson, who initiated the idea. (In any case, do read Winterson's monthly column on her website, it's a hoot.)

And finally, my current musical obsession, and a perfect illustration of how the right remix can turn lead into gold. Actually the Whitest Boy Alive's "Golden Cage" isn't quite lead because its frontman is Erland Øye, whom I actually like. But that song's just blah limp funk, an indie version of Liquid Liquid. It ambles along with an utter lack of a point as Øye sings his prettily wistful and fairly unremarkable lyrics.

But a few weeks ago—and a couple of years after "Golden Cage" was released—Fred Falke (often working with Alan Braxe but here operating on his own) released a remix that turns the track into a fantabulous disco-house summer hit. First of all, the overall vibe feels springier and more energetic without losing a certain melancholy undertow. Second, Falke's treated Øye's vocals, adding a faint echo that makes them feel more distant (and provides the aforementioned melancholy). Third, he's added at least a trio of distinct killer synth hooks; I mean, most songs would be happy to have just one, but Falke's thrown them all into the pot. Fourth, the occasional vocoder effect is not so much electroclash as weirdly 70s proggy, as if suddenly a bit from Alan Parsons Project or late ELO had been imported in.

Compare and contrast:
The Whitest Boy Alive: "Golden Cage"
The Whitest Boy Alive: "Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix)"